Interesting W/E

This weekend I traveled to Edmonton to take part in what is called a “Section Meeting” for the Western Canadian Ninety-Nines. The Ninety-Nines are a historical group, started by Amelia Earhart in 1929. The name has a fairly simply origin – in 1929 Amelia sent out letters to all the known women pilots (117) in the US were invited to a meeting and ninety-nine responded. The organization became “international”, who knows when. Currently membership stands at around 5,500 members. There are more than 5,500 women pilots but a funny thing …. almost every “famous” pilot is or has been a Ninety-Nine but not all women pilots choose to join.

The organization has been absolutely faithful to the concept of having as full members, ONLY women pilots. This has probably cost them in terms of membership but …. it really is an exclusive Club and they do a lot of work providing scholarship and mentoring for young women interested in flying.

There is no doubt in my mind that there was more collective wisdom in the meeting room this weekend than what I would ever hope to learn if I buried myself in aviation books for the rest of my life. The adventures some of these women have had. It continues to impress me that women who “have it made” are willing to offer a hand up to others who are only on their way. Some female pilots do not see the value of membership in this group but I will tell you, there is something magic that happens when a group of women only pilots get together and “yak”.

Turkey

Turkey?

You bet:




Although today is actually Thanksgiving, my family celebrated yesterday, as is our tradition on long weekends to ensure we have a day to “recuperate”. Our table was expanded by one, a fellow who is in the aviation industry who prefers to tell people that he is in “transportation” and if they press, tells them that he transports aluminum – the aluminum of course, is an Air Bus, so I guess I will be referring to him as “the-fellow-who-transports-aluminum”. In some ways I find it more than a little disturbing that in my blog I tend to identify and perhaps “define” people by their roles and occupations. My rationalization is that it is all about anonymity and their needing to have a choice about whether or not their identity or near-identify is made public.

Today I am fueled by “Turkey Power”, having made several trips up and down the four flights of stairs doing laundry and otherwise enforcing order on chaos like some kind of domestic goddess. The computer of yesterday’s tale has been assembled and slowly, slowly piles of filing are emerging. Mind you, the old task of needing to weed through the filing cabinet drawers and toss all that I am not legally bound to keep remains. It is a “Catch – 22” in that in order to file the piles (poetic, yes?), I really should thin out the drawers as they are difficult to close now, never mind if additional stuff is stuffed in. On the other hand … weeding out ….yeeecccchhhh!

My treat by the way is to come down to the office, throw laundry in the machines and type a bit in my blog. I swear, this is not AADD …. Or is it???

A Perfect Example

A Perfect Example ….

This last hour or so is a perfect example of how my life goes at times.

OK, I decide I should write a blog note and in the midst of writing I realize I need a couple of pics that are on a disk “somewhere” so up I go, four flights of stairs to the upstairs office that is in chaos (more about this later), grab a couple of likely suspects, down to the “real” computer that does not babble on about “disk space and so on”, insert disks only to find, nope, not the ones I need.

Up four flights of stairs into the “room of chaos” and decide, NO, the chaos cannot continue and the “re-assemble computer” has been on my “To Do” list too long. The chaos, I would like to believe, is NOT MY FAULT, such is my denial system. TELUS, you all remember TELUS of two submissions May 29th and one of June 5th, again, they had to visit me a couple of weeks ago as my second line was no longer functioning.

The first TELUS guy, youngish and lithe, did not require that I disassemble my computer and move the computer desk away from the bookcase/wall so he could have access to the telephone wall plug. He simply crawled on his belly, wedged himself betwixt desk end and bookcase/wall and performed the needed work. In retrospect, perhaps he should have asked me to move the desk, et al. The most recent TELUS guy was neither lithe nor young, isolated the “problem” to be a wire shorting out on, he believed, the upper most level (the four flights of stairs to which I keep referring). He takes one look at the desk/computer-bookcase/wall arrangement and indicates he has no plan to act as a marine/dog face/any other infantry troop and slide on his [considerable] belly to perform the required work.

Seeing his response, I dutifully begin the disassembly while he works on the opposite site of the wall – there is also a phone jack there. The desk has not been move since it was put in place five or six years ago … oops ten years ago, the back of the desk has never seen a dust cloth. The CPU is unplug from all its ancillary paraphernalia and dragged, with much difficulty to “sort of” the middle of the room – that is, as middle as it gets given the four large filing cabinets adjacent the wall.

Meanwhile, Mr. TELUS finishes HIS WORK and announces he does not need to access the phone jack that is located on the book case wall. DONCHA JUST LOVE TELUS?????????????

Mr. TELUS departs, I am around $80.00 poorer, the theory being that somehow, when the house was built, a phone wire got snagged or nailed or something so it is in MY wall therefore MY FAULT – has nothing to do with the work of Mr. LITHE & YOUNG… Hhhhmmm why did the problem only emerge AFTER …. Oh, never mind – DONCHA JUST LOVE TELUS?????????


Oh gosh where was I, OK I’m dusting, disconnecting from USB’s and otherwise straightening out cords when I somehow become distracted and discover, what may be “THE” disk I seek. Down four flights of stairs YESSSSSS! Finish the blog note and decide, I must share with others, my own personal AADD – Adult Attention Deficit Disorder.

In the midst of all of this, my computer, the real one, decided it needed to have its capricious daily crash. Ever since I installed Dell’s “Network Assistant” – at least I think since then, (although it could be the copier/printer whose icon continues with “hp psc disconnected” when clearly everything is connected) the computer has crashed once a day … the blue screen of death. Must check into that BUT NOT TODAY.

Would be nice to finish at least one job!

Thanks

Well, here it is Thanksgiving and I am truly THANKFUL, for my family, friends and my situation in life. My situation in live, at the present, being a cat on each side, within petting distance and I believe, looking at me with adoration – alternately, looking at my fingers dancing across the keyboard and their “cat-thought being, “there must be something really neat to play with up there”.

This evening, OK, late afternoon, I will take a meal with my “big sister” and “brother-in-law-fixer-of-all-things” and recently, “Restorer-of-Antique-Wagons”.
BEFORE:


If you couldn't guess ... AFTER

“Big Sister” has generously opened their home to a new comer to the Province, my connection to this person being through the Internet and Women in Aviation. It will be nice to share the especially good cooking, understand clearly, we will miss “my-niece-the-librarian-accting-coordinator-of-something-I-can’t-remember” and the “nephew and niece-in-law-living-in-Singapore”. Personally, I will miss playing Trivial Pursuit, the “blood sport” of our family – at least among the kids and me.

My blog has been neglected lately as I’m still annoyed at my inability to publish links. I’m not sure what happened but when I go to publish a link the computer sort of rapidly goes through two “you-are-leaving-blah, blah, blah … the link seems to appear but when tested, evidently is non-functional. It may be my fate to remain link less and therefore required to describe more accurately and independently that which to I might refer – so to speak.

Yipes! Tagged by Coffee, so here goes:


3 Smells I love:
• The air just after a spring rain
• Bread baking
• “Jet A in the morning”

3 Smells I hate:
• Decaying meat
• Ammonia
• Thrills gum

3 Jobs that I have had in my life:
• Worked in mattress plant sewing the funny gauzy thing underneath the box spring
• Clerk typist
• Medical Laboratory Assistant

3 Movies I could watch over and over:
• Sound of Music
• Missing
• Bridge Too Far

3 Fond Memories:
• First Solo
• Seeing my sister’s kids baptized
• Successfully defending my graduate degree

3 Jobs I would love to have:
• Just about anything in aviation
• Just about anything in aviation
• Ummm … just about anything in aviation

3 Places I have lived:
• Michigan
• Oregon
• Calgary

3 Things I like to do:
• In spite of what Mark W. says … fly
• Pat my cats
• Play piano


3 Of my favorite foods:
• Good steak, cooked rare!
• Macaroni and Cheese
• Turkey

3 Places I would like to be right now:
• Hawaii
• Houston
• Singapore

3 Websites I visit daily:
• www.avcanada.ca
• www.clubsmartcar.ca
• www.bloglines.com

3 Things that make me cry:
• “heroic” film/movies
• Marshal music
• Hearing “Oh Canada” playing at the Olympics

NOW ... I TAG:
Quodlibet
Library Ephemia
Amelian Earhart